by Cherry Adair
Eleven
Ry stepped closer. Addy didn’t retreat, but her eyes narrowed fractionally as she looked up at him. There was no anger, no heat, nothing. He had enough for both of them.
This close he saw things he’d almost forgotten: the small beauty mark she insisted was a freckle under her left eye. The three freckles on her nose. The tiny scar bisecting the outer tip of her left eyebrow that she’d gotten when she fell on the playground at her fancy Swiss boarding school at age six. The soft, rosy flush of her cheeks when she was either mad or aroused.
The need to map her contours again was overwhelming. His fingers flexed, but his hands remained at his sides. Unconsciously he leaned forward a little, as if drawn by a magnet. “I don’t like him touching you,” he said, voice thick with a need he didn’t bother to hide. Because he couldn’t help himself, Ry used a fingertip to rearrange her hair so it fell behind her shoulder. The strands felt cool, the scent of flowers intoxicating. He dropped his hand as if he’d been burned. It was too little. It was like seeing a delicious cake and not being allowed even a small taste.
Inhaling sharply, she bit the corner of her lower lip. Something he desperately wanted to do himself. A shallow exhale. Then no breath at all as she held it. Self-calming, he knew. He could’ve told her it wouldn’t work. Because, just as acutely as he was aware of her, he knew she felt the same way. It was in the dilation of her pupils and the rapid throb of her pulse at the base of her throat.
Ry had never waited for permission for anything in his life, but even though it was killing him, he waited now.
She could’ve pushed him away. But she didn’t. She could’ve stepped back, away from him. But she didn’t. There were a dozen things Addy could’ve done that would’ve stopped him cold. Hell, she was capable of freezing him with a word or just a look. But she gave no signal for him to halt.
Instead, her gaze met his, direct, unflinching, as she said softly, “He doesn’t.”
Naveen didn’t touch her? “Since when?”
How was not kissing her more carnal than stripping her naked right now? He craved her like a man with five minutes of air left in his tank, and ten minutes to go before surfacing.
“Since the day I met you on board the Sea Dragon. You were all scowly and gruff and needed a shave. And I’d never been attracted to a man with a ponytail before.”
Yeah, there were about a hundred levels of class distinctions between high-society Addison D’Marco and salvager Rydell Case. She was as beautiful as a fairy-tale princess, and she’d already had her very own real-life prince.
He’d known just looking at her that he was outclassed and outmatched. He hadn’t given a flying fuck. He’d wanted her as he’d never wanted another woman. Before or since. Nothing. Not a damn thing had changed.
“That was more than three years ago,” he said gruffly. “You took my breath away. You were wearing a yellow dress with little black birds on it, and sky-high fuck-me pumps. I didn’t give a shit that you were destroying my decks with those heels. I wanted to strip you in the sunlight and see if you were as perfect as my imagination insisted you were under your clothes.” Unable to resist, he slid a strand of her hair between his fingers. “I wanted those high heels digging into my ass as I pumped into you. I had to be content with my imagination. You went home with him that day.”
“I left with him, and broke up with him in the car, before he even got me home.”
Yeah, he knew that. It had made Ry feel like a bloody king when she’d come back six weeks later. “You’ve been seeing him again this past year.” He knew. His spies on board kept him apprised of Addy’s comings and goings with the prince. His Mightiness spent a considerable amount of time on board Tesoro Mio. In the cabin Ry now occupied, as it happened. Right next door to hers.
“Seeing.”
“No sex?”
“You have no right to ask me that.”
Fuck rights. “No sex?”
The ambient light from the table lamp behind her cast a copper nimbus around her hair as she shook her head. Being alone with her made him feel alive again. Whole again. Feel hope again after their soul-sucking divorce.
He had no doubt it was temporary. He knew it. But fuckit, he didn’t give a shit. He’d take the relief, the lightness, the cessation of the crushing pain that had dogged him for the past year even if it was ephemeral.
Somehow, hell if he remembered putting it there, his palm cupped her warm cheek. Silky strands of cool hair clung to his wrist. Her beautiful eyes looked fathomless.
“I never stopped loving you, love. Not once. Not for a nanosecond.” The words, low and intense, were wrenched from deep in his gut, unfiltered and intemperate. He said them anyway, because he couldn’t not. “I loved you from the moment I first saw you, and I’ll love you until the day I die.”
Throat working, she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. When she opened them again they were all pupil. “Damn you, Rydell Case. I’m not strong enough to fight both of us.” Stepping into him, Addy wound an arm around his neck, drawing his mouth down to hers. Her tongue touched his, and his body ignited in response. His thrashing heartbeat matched the intensity of the storm raging outside.
For now, this was enough. For now, it was everything.
When he reacted to her like this, with sheer carnality, Ry forgot how smart and sassy she was. He forgot that they had mountains of serious issues creating a chasm between them; he forgot that he had shit going on in his life that seemed insurmountable. He forgot everything other than the feel and taste of Addy. All the world narrowed down to just the woman he loved.
Her lips, slightly parted, moist and free of lipstick, had tempted him in his dreams for over a year. Now her mouth, damp, lips silky smooth and pliable, opened under his. Addy … Ry’s heart beat triple time as he crushed her against his chest.
Bed; less than eight feet away. Too damn far.
She tasted of the coffee she’d drunk on the bridge earlier. The coffee that was going to keep her awake for hours. Which, under the circumstances, was most excellent.
Her mouth was as eager as his as they kissed ravenously. Teeth, tongues, lips. Familiar. Perfect. The wet slip and slide of their mating tongues caused his dick to stir, and he rubbed the hot, pulsing need into the juncture of her thighs, knowing how it had made her react once upon a time. Her low moan shot his arousal up another several notches.
He couldn’t get close enough. The soft pillows of her breasts flattened against his chest as he gathered the silky mass of her hair in one hand to hold her. Tether her. Keep her.
A harsh sound of need came from his own throat as he tightened his arm around her, tasting her, memorizing the moment for the fleeting reality of it.
Her back hit the wall with a dull thud.
Her mouth was hot, the inner lining of her lips slick and sweet. He felt the exhale as her breath left her lungs in a ragged sigh. Tipping her head to rest on his shoulder, Ry crushed her mouth with his own, temperance forgotten. He kissed her as if it was their first kiss. The feverish intensity came back in a rush of emotions and a flood of greedy need.
The hard knock of her rapid heartbeat under his palm felt like a small trapped bird. Her nipple was already hard. He knew how sensitive she was, knew exactly how much pressure she wanted as he pinched the erect bud between his fingers.
He burned for her. Lusted for her to the point of insanity. Dropping his hand to her waist, he shoved his fingers up under her tank top with the happy smiley faces on it. Hot, silky muscles flexed beneath his touch. Her bra was no match for his desperate fingers, and he yelled a silent hallelujah that she still wore front-closure bras as he made fast work of the clip, to cup the heavenly weight of her breast.
She kissed him as if she’d die if she didn’t. God, he could relate. God, he loved the sounds she made, a happy bliss-filled murmur. He wanted to hear more of it. It made him feel … Ry didn’t have a word for it. He didn’t even have a place for the feeling, but it spurred him to hold her more
tightly as he kissed her again.
Lightning flashed behind his closed lids. The ship rolled. Thunder boomed. His heartbeat sounded louder in his ears. Everything he remembered about loving Addy flew out the window. The height and breadth of her sexual desire as she reciprocated sparked a heightened need in him that went beyond even the magic of his memories.
Aroused to a fever pitch, he knew no other woman could compare. He hadn’t even tried. He burned for her. Craved only her. Lusted, with an unrelenting hard-on. Only for her.
His free hand slid over her arse, firm muscles tensed under his hand. Thin cotton the only barrier between him and what he needed. Later. Now he had to be tight inside her. Needed to drive into her to satiate this unbearable longing he’d held in check for so long. He slid his fingers to the zipper, and she shifted to grant him access.
Her arm uncoupled from his neck, and she shoved her hand down between them, fighting him to be the first to get her zipper down. Since her fingers were more nimble than his in this instance, Ry tackled his own zipper, shoving his board shorts down his legs and stepping out of them and into her. Addy only managed to get her zipper down; it was Ry who made short work of stripping shirts from their torsos and a thong down her smooth legs.
His hand went back to the clench of her ass. Smooth skin, living muscle.
Need.
Want.
Hunger.
She curled her leg over his hip. Gripping the flexing muscles in her ass, Ry yanked her even closer, thrusting up inside her in one powerful stroke. He was home. This joining was familiar … what he’d wanted for so long … now he had it … at this moment …
The sensation was exquisitely painful. So sweet, so sharp. Almost unbearable, but he stopped moving, sweat slick on his skin to say hoarsely, “Look at me, love.”
Addy’s lashes fluttered open, eyes glazed with lust.
“I want you to see me. Want you to know who’s loving you.”
* * *
“I know.” Addison managed to push the words out. Her lungs felt constricted, her breathing erratic. He started to thrust and she made a deep husky sound she didn’t recognize as her own as her body clenched tightly around him. They found their rhythm together. She clasped her hands on his butt and settled into a deep, wonderful plunge-twist swivel-slide that made her gasp with pleasure as she lifted herself to him.
She cried out and her world turned upside down as they climaxed together.
Addison’s internal muscles still pulsed as Ry, still hard inside her, carried her to the bed. The punishing grip of his fingers supporting her butt cheeks notched up Addison’s arousal, which hadn’t abated despite the powerful orgasm they’d just shared. That was more than physical. It had been emotional and psychological as well.
Somehow a sliver of light had broken through the darkness.
Burying her face against his sweaty neck, she tasted the salt on his skin. A flavor she’d thought she’d never savor again. Tears stung her closed lids. Don’t leave me. “Don’t let me go.”
He braced his knee on the mattress. “Never. Never again.”
If only …
With her cradled safely in his arms, they dropped onto the bed with a small bounce that drove him deeper. Spreading her, he pumped into her. Faster and faster. She wrapped her legs around his waist and framed his face with both hands, pulling his mouth down to hers for sweet poignant kisses.
Sweat slicked their bodies together. The slap of skin on sweaty skin filled the dimly lit cabin. Addison arched her neck for his kisses, gripping his long hair in her fist as he bit gently on an extended tendon, then ran his teeth from her ear to her shoulder and back again. The sound of his ragged breath, the heat and intensity of his breathing, made her breath come faster. The wonderful weight of him on top of her, combined with the driving power of his thrusts spreading her wide, made her thrash and arch beneath him.
Hot and cold shivers rippled from her head to her toes.
Perfection.
Heat. Lightness. The absence of everything but feeling.
She wanted this moment to last forever.
Ry reached between them and massaged her clit with his thumb as he plunged his hips. Sweet agony, intense pleasure. Arching her back, her strong internal muscles squeezed him, drawing him in even deeper. Breath sawing, she followed his quickening pace, grinding herself against him, heels gripping the flexing muscles of his ass as he drove into her like a man possessed.
She felt her next orgasm starting to crest, but clever Ry held her there, hovering on a pinnacle of release, then tempered the pace so that the wave flattened out, allowing her to breathe, to explore the muscles of his back, to brush the damp hair from his eye. He brought her to the very edge, pulled back. And because she knew this dance, her body wasn’t fooled by the lull; it was already coiling for the next crest.
“Wait for me,” he ordered as his hips pistoned against hers in a pounding rhythm that had her head thrashing on the mattress and her nails digging into the supple skin of his back.
“Can’t—” Eyes squeezed shut, she pushed the word out as every nerve, every tendon, every muscle and joint in her body came together in a climax that rendered her deaf and blind.
Several minutes later her heavy lids flickered open and she found Ry frowning down at her. He traced a finger beneath her left breast. He met her gaze, his eyes shiny and filled with emotion. “This is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, Addy.”
He’d finally seen the white-ink tattoo of tiny angel wings right over her heart. No one else ever had. “Sophia is always with me.”
Without a word, Ry pressed his warm mouth to the delicate wings.
Twelve
Addy sighed in her sleep, a small broken sound that tore at his heart. The movement drew his gaze to the slope of her breasts. Her cleavage looked shadowed and velvety, her breasts small and absolutely perfect. Ry wanted to press his open mouth there. He knew that the merest touch of his tongue or fingertips would rouse her awake. But she needed her sleep so he touched with his eyes alone.
When she was awake Addy was fierce, but in the moment of calm after their storm, he lay beside her, marveling at her delicate features in repose. He loved how the soft white moonlight turned her skin to warm marble, dusting her cheekbones and the tips of her lashes with silver glitter, turning the fire of her hair to frost. He loved the way her dark eyelashes fanned on her cheeks, still flushed from their lovemaking. Her normally sassy mouth with the full, sexy lower lip lay soft, her lips slightly parted.
Now her mouth looked vulnerable, bee-stung. She loved to kiss, had taught him the pleasure of taking his time when they kissed so that now it was almost as much a turn-on as having sex. Almost. He loved her kisses when they were soft and deep, he loved them when they were hot and wild. Kissing Addy was a miracle.
Instead of touching, he looked his fill to store the picture away for later. The pleasure and pain of being with her again was almost unbearably perfect. He didn’t want to ruin it. Yet he understood that he could very well do so.
The question was: Would he do this right? Could he say and do the right thing this time when morning and reality came knocking?
Every muscle in Ry’s body tensed to the point that he thought he was having one fucking hellish cramp. Sweat beaded above his brow, over his mouth, down his back. “Crap. I’ve got to be better or leave now before I make it worse.”
He loved Addy. Did love give him the right to ruin her life … again. Or, did love give him a chance to make it right?
“Fuck.”
How each of them had reacted to Sophia’s death lay at the heart of their history; pain too deep, too profound to share. When tragedy should’ve brought them together, it had, instead, ripped them apart. Had anything really changed from those days?
Or did making love to her confirm what his broken heart had told him? He would do whatever he needed to do to get her back.
In a few hours, with the harsh light of day, they’d talk.
/> They had to fucking talk. It was past time. Or had so much time already passed that he had to leave her the hell alone … because he loved her that much.
Ry stayed until the cold light of the moon filled the cabin, then slipped quietly out of her bed.
* * *
It’s a dream. Wake up. Wake. Up.
Addison shifted restlessly as fear and oppressive, cloying darkness surround her. Wake up! Arms were too heavy to lift. Surrounded by dark spears of tall trees, the starless night sky was just a shade lighter than the dense foliage pressing in around her. Unable to cover her ears to block out the hideous sounds of pain, she tried in vain to run.
The air, humid and somehow malevolent, curled around her, making her flash hot then cold. Goose bumps pebbled her skin. Every hard knock of her rapid heartbeat caused piercing pain in her chest, making it hard to breathe.
Just a dream. God. It felt real.
She loved animals, and somewhere in the dark forest where she stood, naked and alone, a wild beast cried out in torment. The agony in the guttural sound made the fine hairs on her skin stand straight up, and caused her heart to pound even harder.
Her legs moved, and she ran, not knowing to what, or how to get there; all she knew was that she had to help. Now. But no matter how hard she tried to break into a full-out sprint, she moved in slow-mo. Sharp grasses slashed at her legs, cutting deep, stinging. She sped up at last—now running faster than she’d run in her life. Dark shapes blurred with her passing. The agonized cries tore at her own throat, although she knew she wasn’t the one making the sounds herself.
Close. Getting closer.
Panting, struggling to draw oxygen into her constricted lungs, she had no idea where she was going. She only knew getting there was imperative. She paused to listen, attempting to get a directional cue. Blackness pressed tightly around her. Blood from a million lacerations on her feet and calves trickled warm down her cold legs. The sting was nothing compared with the animal’s tortured screams.